Figure 1.

Hepatic injury may be driven by a variety of insults including viral infection, alcohol, metabolic derangements associated with obesity and steatosis, or autoimmune processes. With repeated injury, the normal wound‐healing response results in profibrogenic and proinflammatory signaling. The tissue response to injury results in a variety of recruited cells that triggers a proinflammatory and profibrogenic signaling cascade that drives fibrosis. Unchecked, fibrosis can result in end‐stage liver disease and/or cirrhosis and, over time, lead to hepatocellular carcinoma.